More fertiliser factories needed
Photo: Shafiq Islam / driknews
When one looks back to the agriculture scene of the past in Bangladesh, it would be seen that the government agencies motivated farmers to use fertilisers to increase farm production. Urea and other fertilisers are indispensable to get higher production. The farmers agitate when they do not get fertilisers. The media tries to influence the government to maintain an adequate supply and to keep the prices low. If any problem arises, the government is blamed. The Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) has set up some fertiliser factories and has been operating those for a long time. The demand of fertilisers has been increasing rapidly. The local production can meet only 50 per cent of our requirements. But in the past fifteen years, the last three elected governments and private entrepreneurs did not come forward to set up any fertiliser factory . About 1.5 million metric tons of fertilisers has to be imported every year. We have lost opportunities to set up new fertiliser factories in the last 15 years. We have to set up such factories to meet the local demand. This is necessary to boost agricultural production, which is a crucially important issue.
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